Shaping Musical Interests

When I got my Ipod 6 months ago, I downloaded some of the kids favorites. We were all thrilled to listen to Jack Johnson sing his hits from Curious George and Sarah McLachlan sign Ordinary Miracle from Charlotte's Web. I actually enjoyed those songs. We also have some favorites that I've sung to them since they were babies, like Kenny Loggins Danny Song. I remember when Emily actually heard it sung for real, meaning in tune. She was all excited saying, "Mommy, it's my song!" She must have thought it was something I made up. Trust me, if I could write such lovely lyrics, I would not be driving a mini-van to Walmart right now!

I made the mistake of downloading the Lion King soundtrack. Now, don't get me wrong, it's nice the first few times. But when I start using the phrase "Hakuna Matata" in an adult conversation, it's time for it to go. Before I threw my IPod out the window, I decided the kids need to expand their musical interests.

I started playing my favorites.

Some music goes over well and some doesn't. The other day, Ben and I were driving to get Emily from preschool. I was flipping through deciding on what I was in the mood for. I spotted Elvis. Now, I always believe you are either an Elvis person or a Beatles person. I like both, but I prefer the Beatles. If I were stuck on a island and HAD to listen to one of them over and over, I would pick the Beatles in a heartbeat. I have one Elvis song on my IPod as my Dad downloaded it when he was at our house. Falling In Love With You is a pretty decent Elvis song, so I put it on. This is how it went down.

Elvis: "Wise men say..."
Ben: "Turn it off."
Elvis: "Only fools rush in..."
Ben: "Turn it off!"
Elvis: "But I can't help..."
Ben: "TURN IT OFF!!!"

Clearly not an Elvis fan.

It's fun to see which songs they like. They are fans of John Mayer and they love the I Am Sam soundtrack which is all Beatles tunes by different artists. Today's favorite which was played 4 times before we made it home was Across The Universe by the Beatles. Emily picks up lyrics fast and I was smiling to myself when by the second go round I could hear her signing, "Nothing's gonna change my world."

I know in a few short years, I won't have much say in their musical interests. For now, I will enjoy influencing them.

Closet Done!!!

I'm done!

I feel like I have gotten so much accomplished in a few days. I painted the shelves in the closet and got everything I could off the floor. It looks better even then when we first moved in. Those few days were such a whirlwind that stuff was everywhere. I don't think it has ever looked so organized. I was able to open the door all the way for the first time. There used to be a tote behind it.

Here's my side.

Here's David's side.

It took longer than expected as I ran across the box of all of our love letters from when we first met. David still writes me nice things, but it's fun to look back and read what we thought when life was just him and I.

Now, I need to clean out the dresser drawers. Or maybe I'll leave something for the spring!

Garage Down, Closet To Go

After I picked up Emily from preschool, I decided to tackle the garage. I was reorganizing a few boxes along the way and packing up Halloween decorations. Emily and Ben kept themselves occupied. They wrote on the floor with chalk. They played on bikes and sat in their power wheels. They also found a piece of styrofoam and decided to break it into a million little pieces.

They did this inside!

I cleaned up the winter wonderland and got back to work. The garage now looks like this and we still have lots of shelf space empty!



The entire left side is filled with Christmas decorations.

We can finally walk through again.


The Humane Society said they would take off Roxie's "growth". We still don't know if it was a fatty tumor or cyst. But our vet suggested to let them take it off since they will do it for free and these things can abscess and cause problems later. She has to wear this cone for 2 weeks and then the stitches come out. This is our poor girl. She is clumsily walking around the house hitting her cone on everything.


Time to tackle the closet. I will not post before pictures as it's too embarrasing, but the after will be pretty!

Whew...

It's been like a whirlwind for the past few days.

We made Daddy a cake just because. It was Emily's idea and she wanted to make chocolate cake.





Ben pretended to be a superhero with my headband.


Emily loves writing her letters with chalk in our garage.


Then came our day trip to the Dentist on Thursday. Yes, day trip. We switched to a new insurance provider and they offered 2 choices of dentists here in our area. One is accepting new patients, just not with our insurance. What? The other has their first available appointment at the end of March! We decided to head to North Phoenix (about 70 minute drive)and have a family appointment. While we were there, I asked my friend Shar to check on Roxie. We decided to put her in the kennel which is in our bedroom since putting her in the backyard didn't work. She was growling a little when David put her in there. We should've known something was up. Shar calls me before noon. We had just sat down in McDonalds for the kids to play before we headed back home. Roxie has a gash on her lip, chipped her tooth and her snout is totally swollen. There is a pile of blood in front of the kennel gate the size of a dinner plate. She obviously did not like being in there. Post tramatic stress syndrome? I don't know, but we won't do that again. We made a vet appointment on our drive home and David took her in once we got here. Thank God my friend check on her. The inside of the kennel looked like somebody took a spray bottle filled with blood and went to town. Needless to say, the kennel is cleaned up and sitting in the garage. Roxie is fine also.
Here's Em lovin' on Roxie.


Friday, Em had school. My Dad and Suzy came up to visit for a few days. The kids decorated cookies with Grandma Suzy.




We carved a pumpkin.




We dressed up for Halloween. Em was Dorothy and Ben was the Wicked Witch.






We worked on home projects. My Dad helps us with a list of things we want to get done, but don't quite know how to do. This weekends project was shelving. We have a 3 car garage. We park both of our cars inside the 2 car garage and the other garage is PACKED. I can't stand it. I found a guy giving away this shelving on craigslist for free. My Dad came up with the brilliant idea on how to hang it. Now, I need to get organized. Hence, my project for the week.

The kids took some time to look in the attic with Papa.





I just realized that my kids rarely have pants on. I don't know why that is. They take them off to go to the bathroom and they don't want them back on.

Here is the final project. The shelves run all the way around the garage. I'll be busy the next few days getting things organized.



We also fixed the shelves in our closet. They only put in a 11 inch shelf at the top of our closet. It wasn't even big enough to hold a large suitcase. So, we'd put things horizontally and hardly nothing would fit up there. We glued some plywood down on top of the shelf and it will add 5 inches which is perfect to fit what we need. Now, I have to paint it white and get all the stuff off of my closet floor.



My Dad and Suzy left Sunday at noon. At 3:00, we had a Halloween party for all the families in our Mom group. I'll have to do another post on that as I have work I need to do and it won't get done if I sit on this computer.

Roxie Houdini

We have an escape artist. We hadn't left Roxie alone since we got her Monday afternoon. I had to take Emily to school today. I put Roxie outside figuring she'd be fine. She was an outdoor dog after all or so the paperwork stated. I was gone 40 minutes total. I pulled up our driveway and there she is sitting by our front door!What!?! Our gate for our yard does have an 8 inch gap on one side that goes down to about 2 inches on the other side. It has to stay this way for drainage or so they told us. I wasn't worried about the gap because we stapled chicken wire over it to keep the bunnies out of our garden. It wasn't super strong chicken wire. We were just trying to keep out a 1 pound bunny. Apparently, it doesn't take a dog of 71 pounds long to go right through that. She dug a tiny bit, but must have realized she could get through without the digging. Oh brother. At least she didn't run away. We also had one of Forest's old collars on her because it had our phone numbers on it. I figured it was a good idea until we got her an ID tag. I didn't realize how good of idea that was until now.

I left her inside when I went to pick Emily up from school. She seemed to do just fine. I think she got on the sofa though because I strategically placed a blanket and it was disturbed. She's tried to get on the sofa a few times while we were at home. I guess that was allowed at her old house. We'll have to try to break that or I'll just have to put down a blanket when we leave and so be it. If that's the worst thing I have to complain about, I'm pretty lucky.

It's The Great Pumpkin

My friend Dakri calls last night to tell me It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is on TV. I remembered watching this on occasion, but to be honest, I didn't actually remember it well. David said the same thing. We decided to Tivo it and watch it together. The commercials ruin the experience when right at the height of the show in pops a McDonalds ad. Lame.

David got the kids in the bath early and we all sat on the sofa together to watch the show. The kids loved it. Ben was laughing so hard at Linus. I don't know what exactly was so funny, but he thought Linus was hysterical. His laughing made all of us laugh. I realized that I didn't remember it well as I thought the whole time that the Great Pumpkin was actually going to show up at the end. Instead, Linus got his butt chewed out and that was it. It was fun to watch though and the kids have already requested it this afternoon. They are laughing at it right now as I write this and that's good enough for me.

We Hit The Jackpot

Is it possible to hit the jackpot twice? I think we just did. Forest was the best dog possible and Roxie is turning out to be just as wonderful.

She slept well through the night although she did snore a little.

Her information sheet that whomever left when they dropped her off said she wasn't housebroken. She cries and she runs away. This person must have been smoking something really good because she does none of those things. She goes to the bathroom outside whenever we go out. She hasn't even barked once. I had her off the lease in the front yard today while the kids rode bikes and played hopscotch and she didn't move. The mail man came by, another dog walked by, nothing. She rules!

She also passed the test with Max, our cat. They barely sniffed each other and they went about their business.

We lucked out!